Tag Archives: technology

Reportedly, Facebook is finally coming out with its iteration of on-demand TV. The company has reached out to its partners, asking them to turn in the first episodes of their inexpensive, short-form programs.

According to undisclosed sources, Facebook is funding some higher-end content. The newly released content is going to be accessible separate from the news feed, in a new “Video” tab, alongside user-generated content.

Facebook is looking to make something higher-end than Google’s YouTube, yet is not willing to compete with other original content providers such as Netflix, HBO and Showtime.

According to tweets by Elon Musk, aka. The Tony Stark of real life, on Thursday, “verbal” government approval for digging the world’s longest tunnel for his newest venture – The Boring Company, has been reached. The tunnel is to be dug from New York to Washington D.C. and is a part of another one of Musk’s ideas, Hyperloop.

For those who have been out of the loop, pun fully intended, Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation alternative, which would make the journey from NYC to D.C. in around a half an hour.

It seems that the abbreviation AI and the phrase “deep learning” get thrown around an awful lot lately. Understandably so, as presented in the chart below, the frequency of Google searches for “deep learning” has grown considerably in the last 5 years, one can easily see an exponential growth pattern. Everyone seems to want to find out what exactly it is and how to benefit.

The increase of interest reflects the change of focus of industry leading companies rather precisely. Nvidia, Intel, AMD and now Fujitsu have set out on a quest to create the best – most capable hardware for artificial intelligence. All of the aforementioned companies have come out or are coming out with AI optimized hardware.

Remember Google Glass – the way ahead of its time, privacy nightmare – Google’s take on augmented reality that nobody has heard anything about in four years? Well, it turns out its making a comeback in the enterprise market.

Reportedly, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, revealed its plans for the augmented reality glasses on Tuesday. The new – Enterprise Edition of Glass – is going to be used by professionals who need a heads-up display while they work.

A company called Augmedix is offering the device as a part of their subscription service for doctors. Additionally, workers from companies like Volkswagen, General Electric and Boeing are utilizing Google Glass to keep their hands free while performing various tasks.

Our weighted average return in May was +0.76%, bringing our year-to-date return to +8.2%.

May marks our 16th consecutive month without an average monthly drawdown of over 1.3%. Moreover, during this timeframe, we have only had two months of negative performance (-0.10% in September 2016 and -1.29% in November 2016). This consistency of performance is not attributable to hedging strategies or active volatility management, but to successful asset allocation and choosing good investments.

For quite some time, we have profited greatly from our overweight in technology stocks such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Netflix. In May, we took profits on many of these positions. As we were in the process of selling, we were quite aware of the fact that we might be selling too early (see our blog). However, there are times that you simply have to say ‘thank you’ and walk away for a while. For many of these stocks nothing has really changed since we were buying them heavily in December, yet all of a sudden, they are now worth 30% more. Recognizing how sentiment can change and to what degree it can propel a stock is a very important component of active investing. Not letting your imagination get away from itself is just as important. It is nice when everyone agrees with you – but it is times like these that you must apply the highest degree of self-critique and suspicion.

As mentioned previously, we have been busy selling off technology stocks and positioning ourselves in new companies and sectors that we believe will come to warrant the market’s attention.

We have already acknowledged that our sale of tech stocks might have been too early. However, we were heavily overweight the sector. The rise in tech equity prices, coupled with underperformance in other sectors, has resulted in a reevaluation of opportunity cost, and as such, we have acted accordingly.

The calculator/tool is constructed based on the data from McKinsey Global Institute. As a large consulting business they usually have wider picture of what actions companies are taking to improve their processes.

Though we should keep in mind that technology is going forward very rapidly. Many more activities and even jobs or roles will be automated in not so distant future. And some jobs won’t be automated, some will go away completely.

Banking has a fascinating history, and has played a seminal role in the forging of the modern world.

Today, as banks furiously try to keep up with technologies and new ways of attracting and maintaining clients, it bears consideration as to what their roles will be in the future. Will they fall pray to today’s aggregators and connectors? Quite possibly.

In a world where more and more of your everyday purchases are sourced from Amazon, why not carry a balance on your Amazon account? Surely they could come up with enticing reasons for you to do so. Looking for a loan? Surely Google could personalize and rank your best options. Need to make a payment? Facebook has a decently sized network of users (1.6 billion and counting)…